ADP, Light vehicle sales, Wolf quote

This is ADP’s forecast of tomorrow’s employment number. We’ll see tomorrow how well accurate they were:

A bit higher than expected but down for 2017 vs 2016 (negative growth):

Highlights

Unit vehicle sales proved solid in December, at a 17.9 million annualized rate vs 17.5 million in November. Outside of October and September, which were driven by hurricane-replacement demand, December’s results are among the very best of the last two years. The results, which easily top Econoday’s high estimate, point to strength for the motor vehicle component of the retail sales report and are a plus for fourth-quarter consumer spending. Domestic-made sales also topped the high estimate, coming in at a 14.0 million rate vs November’s revised 13.8 million.

Based on a preliminary estimate from WardsAuto, light vehicle sales were at a 17.79 million SAAR in December.

Jan 3 (WSJ) — Though sales fell 1.8% last year as pent-up demand declined and interest faded in sedans and compact cars, auto makers still sold 17.2 million vehicles in 2017, the first time the industry has cleared the 17-million mark three consecutive years, according to IHS Markit. Vehicles now routinely sell for above $32,000, even with average incentives of $4,000 factored in, according to J.D. Power. That is 10% higher than what car buyers were dishing out when the industry’s rally began in 2010. The domestic car business is far healthier than the last time volumes slipped.

From Wolf’s book:

10. Wolff also writes at length about former Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn, who leads the president’s National Economic Council. Cohn has privately disagreed with Trump a number of times in the past year. But an April email that, Wolff writes, circulated around the White House “purporting to represent the views of Gary Cohn” takes this to a new level:

“It’s worse than you can imagine. An idiot surrounded by clowns. Trump won’t read anything – not one-page memos, not the brief policy papers; nothing. He gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he is bored. And his staff is no better. Kushner is an entitled baby who knows nothing. Bannon is an arrogant prick who thinks he’s smarter than he is. Trump is less a person than a collection of terrible traits. No one will survive the first year but his family. I hate the work, but feel I need to stay because I’m the only person there with a clue what he’s doing. The reason so few jobs have been filled is that they only accept people who pass ridiculous purity tests, even for midlevel policy-making jobs where the people will never see the light of day. I am in a constant state of shock and horror.”